Great series! Lots of tea. Finishing the first book I was to both parts excited and anxious. For one, its just fun to read yet also very intelligent and deep SF. But I was worried about being drowned in too much tea, which I kinda did, but in a good way, I guess. Ann Leckie has a way to writing really lively and nunanced conversations. If it needs tea to do that, then so be it.
Hard to rate the books separately, since they felt like one in the end. But highly recommended!
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Favorite genres: SF, Solarpunk, queer stuff, historic fiction (and nonfiction). I often read novels but sometimes in a mood for short stories and novellas as well. (Clarke's World eg.)
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nylki's books
2024 Reading Goal
50% complete! nylki has read 6 of 12 books.
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nylki rated November 1918. Erster Teil : Bürger und Soldaten 1918: 3 stars
November 1918. Erster Teil : Bürger und Soldaten 1918 by Alfred Döblin
November 1918: A German Revolution (German: November 1918, eine deutsche Revolution) is a tetralogy of novels by German writer …
nylki rated Arboreality: 4 stars
nylki rated This Is How You Lose the Time War: 5 stars
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone
Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters—and fall in love in …
nylki reviewed Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #3)
For just a moment, things seem to be under control for the soldier known as …
Review of 'Ancillary Mercy' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
nylki rated The Terraformers: 3 stars
The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz
From science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration of the future.
Destry's life …
nylki rated Ancillary Sword: 4 stars
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie (Imperial Radch, #2)
Seeking atonement for past crimes, Breq takes on a mission as captain of a troublesome new crew of Radchai soldiers, …
nylki rated The Quantum Thief: 4 stars
The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
A breathtaking joyride through the solar system several centuries hence, a world of marching cities, ubiquitous public-key encryption, people who …
nylki rated Die Maschinen (Imperial Radch, #1): 4 stars
nylki rated Unterleuten: 4 stars
nylki reviewed Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
"Generations after leaving earth, a starship draws near to the planet that may serve as …
Review of 'Aurora' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Ranges in the 4-5 stars range for me. Looking back, after finishing the last chapter, this feels a bit like the generation ship novel I always wanted to read, but didn't know existed or what title to look out for.
Its story is spanning decades, the ship has huge biomes where people actually lived multiple generations and create their own society and culture with all its issues due to being confined in a limited space (and gene pool), without a way to just move somewhere else or choose a different path as you could on earth.
The narrator perspective was something I liked about this book as well. The printed story in Aurora, which is essentially about the inhabitants/settlers of the generation ship, starts as a dialog between one of the ships engineers and the ships kind-of-sentient AI. Later this perspective changes again a bit, but that is spoiler territory. …
Ranges in the 4-5 stars range for me. Looking back, after finishing the last chapter, this feels a bit like the generation ship novel I always wanted to read, but didn't know existed or what title to look out for.
Its story is spanning decades, the ship has huge biomes where people actually lived multiple generations and create their own society and culture with all its issues due to being confined in a limited space (and gene pool), without a way to just move somewhere else or choose a different path as you could on earth.
The narrator perspective was something I liked about this book as well. The printed story in Aurora, which is essentially about the inhabitants/settlers of the generation ship, starts as a dialog between one of the ships engineers and the ships kind-of-sentient AI. Later this perspective changes again a bit, but that is spoiler territory.
The world building is great and believable. If something did dissapoint me, it was to some degree the characters and their story, they didn't feel as deep as i would have liked. It all fits well together though and the ship-as-narrator itself is in a way the main character of the book and guiding the narration of the story and how everything was described including interpersonal relationships but also technical or engineering aspects of the travel. Those were sometimes very detailed, fitting the sentient AI-trope even ChatGPT-like escalatingly over detailed but also philosophical. And I suppose you can rarely have all of it in one book, intricate world building as well as deep characters and dialogs.
The storytelling is therefore quite different from a very dialog and conversational heavy book like Becky Chambers [b:Record of a Spaceborn Few|32802595|Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers, #3)|Becky Chambers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1516965190l/32802595.SY75.jpg|53399142] for example.
But overall great hard-SF read with some interesting story turns!
PS: On the topic of generation ships, one that I found equally intruiging and hitting similar points in terms of societal issues (as far as I remember from when I read) is Le Guin's novella [b:Paradises Lost|32797521|Paradises Lost|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|24874466], which is shorter of course but also highly recommended if you are interested in generation ship stories.
nylki reviewed Queer*Welten: 09-2022 by Lena Richter (Queer*Welten, #9)
Review of 'Queer*Welten 09-2022' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Da ich meist lieber in Richtung SF als Fantasy lese war ich mir erst nicht wirklich sicher wie interessant ich das Thema diesmal finden würde, aber am Ende waren dann doch einige sehr schöne und untereinander sehr unterschiedliche Texte dabei!
Mein Favorit unter den insgesamt 5 Kurzgeschichten ist Schwache Anziehung von Helen Faust in der es eine auf die Probe gestellte Freundschaft zweier Space-Zoll-Kontrolleurnnen die zusammen auf einer Raumstation im Erdorbit leben.
Direkt dahinter kommt toxArt von Juni Is, eine interessante Mischung aus Detektiv-Mystery-Kunsthistorik. Die Story war fesselnd und als jemensch mit Kunstgeschichtsstudium hinter mir, hat der Text auch ganz gut das In-Erinnerungs-Schwelgen-Zentrum im Gehirn gekitzelt ;)
Dann war da noch Raya'sii: Die Legende von Raya, das für mich für das Gedankenspiel der "nicht-humanoiden, intelligenden Wesen" (Zitat aus den Inhalts-Tags für die Geschichte) und der Kommunikation über Spezies-Grenzen hinweg besonders interessant war.
Vom Kinderkriegen von Gerit Virgina Ariel …
Da ich meist lieber in Richtung SF als Fantasy lese war ich mir erst nicht wirklich sicher wie interessant ich das Thema diesmal finden würde, aber am Ende waren dann doch einige sehr schöne und untereinander sehr unterschiedliche Texte dabei!
Mein Favorit unter den insgesamt 5 Kurzgeschichten ist Schwache Anziehung von Helen Faust in der es eine auf die Probe gestellte Freundschaft zweier Space-Zoll-Kontrolleurnnen die zusammen auf einer Raumstation im Erdorbit leben.
Direkt dahinter kommt toxArt von Juni Is, eine interessante Mischung aus Detektiv-Mystery-Kunsthistorik. Die Story war fesselnd und als jemensch mit Kunstgeschichtsstudium hinter mir, hat der Text auch ganz gut das In-Erinnerungs-Schwelgen-Zentrum im Gehirn gekitzelt ;)
Dann war da noch Raya'sii: Die Legende von Raya, das für mich für das Gedankenspiel der "nicht-humanoiden, intelligenden Wesen" (Zitat aus den Inhalts-Tags für die Geschichte) und der Kommunikation über Spezies-Grenzen hinweg besonders interessant war.
Vom Kinderkriegen von Gerit Virgina Ariel Gerlach ist wie ein Briefwechsel oder Tagebuch geschrieben und hatte durch die versatzstückhafte Erzählweise zwischen zwei Parallelwelten(?) etwas traumhaftes. Das Setting: Wie könnte eine Parallelwelt/Parallelgesellschaft aussehen in die wir scheinbar einfach reisen können und die unserer Erlebniswelt einerseits in vielen Dingen so sehr ähnlich ist, dass die Protagonistin oberflächlich nicht direkt als Parallelweltreisende auffälig ist. Aber in anderen (eben dem Kinderkriegen) wieder komplett anders funktioniert. Am Ende hat mich diese Geschichte aber trotz des interessanten Settings nicht ganz so mitreißen können.
Die Kurzgeschichte Auf See geblieben von Kaj Ideen war eher nichts für mich.
Neben den Kurzgeschichten und den 9-Sätze-Stories gibts am Ende auch noch ein recht lesenwertes Essay über Mikrogenres von Alesandra Reß das nicht zu trocken akademisch war und Spaß gemacht hat zu lesen.
